How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country Image

The following article by Hiroko Tabuchi was posted on the New York Times website June 19, 2018:

Tori Venable, Tennessee state director of Americans for Prosperity, left, helping volunteers in Nashville prepare for canvassing against a mass-transit proposal. Credit: William DeShazer for The New York Times

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A team of political activists huddled at a Hardee’s one rainy Saturday, wolfing down a breakfast of biscuits and gravy. Then they descended on Antioch, a quiet Nashville suburb, armed with iPads full of voter data and a fiery script.

The group, the local chapter for Americans for Prosperity, which is financed by the oil billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch to advance conservative causes, fanned out and began strategically knocking on doors. Their targets: voters most likely to oppose a local plan to build light-rail trains, a traffic-easing tunnel and new bus routes.

“Do you agree that raising the sales tax to the highest rate in the nation must be stopped?” Samuel Nienow, one of the organizers, asked a startled man who answered the door at his ranch-style home in March. “Can we count on you to vote ‘no’ on the transit plan?” Continue reading “How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country Image”